BP GEOGRAPHIC

The Enlightenment. One could say it all began with one man: Sir Isaac Newton. He was born in Lincolnshire, England, on Christmas morning of 1642. When he was three his mother married a man from a nearby village. He hated his stepfather. But later he enrolled at Trinity College in Cambridge, where he found a father figure who was steering him on the way to important discoveries. When Cambridge University was closed due to the plague he was forced to return home, which was the most productive time of his life. He thought that getting true knowledge is only possible by making observations rather than reading books. Scientists would notice something here: The beginnings of empirical science. He experienced with optics and changed the design of the telescope. He also dedicated himself to some radical religious and alchemistic work which helped him shaping his most important works including the theory of gravity. And legendarily that one began with Newton sitting under a tree and an apple falling on his head, although later it became clear that he invented the story. In 1686 he published his “Principia Mathematica”, which took him two years to write but was the culmination of twenty years of thinking. It could be called the foundation of modern science. Newton died in 1727. The term “scientific genius” was invented to describe him, as he laid the foundation for modern science and engineering.

So the very roots of the Enlightenment can be traced to his discoveries, his “Principia Mathematica”, as well as John Locke’s “Essay Concerning Human Understanding”. So one result of that was that English science was regarded as the most brilliant in Europe. Besides, England was a by-word for for an ideal, free and politically liberal society, where men could speak their minds.